Excellence Everywhere - National University of Ireland, Galway

RESPONSIBILITIES BEYONDTHE LABORATORYAs a scientist at a research-oriented university ora research institute, you may focus principally onresearch. But you may also be required to teachclasses and to train the people who work in yourlaboratory. In addition, you may have to performvarious administrative functions at your institution,and if you are a physician, you may also have tolook after patients.TeachingYou may find juggling your teaching and researchresponsibilities to be a bit overwhelming at first.No matter when your teaching duties begin, takethe time to prepare for them. If there are any“how to teach” courses offered on campus, takethem, and if you can, ask permission to sit in on afew of your colleagues’ lectures to see how theyhandle their classes.Bear in mind that teaching gives you an opportunityto meet students who may be interested in doingresearch in your laboratory. There is much moredetailed discussion about teaching in Chapter 8,“Teaching and Course Design.”Launching a research career in biomedicalsciences in low-resource environments indisease-endemic countries is a huge challenge.Success may depend more on creativity andluck than the extent of knowledge about thesubject. In these environments a genius isbest defined by Thomas Edison’s adage—90%perspiration and 10% inspiration.”Moses Bockarie, Papua New GuineaCommittee WorkYou may be expected to participate in one or morecommittees or groups at a university. Althoughyou should take this responsibility seriously, youalso need to be judicious in your choice of assignments.Some committees are very labor-intensive.Others may deal with politically sensitive mattersthat may be difficult for a new researcher. Othercommittees may deal with matters irrelevantto your concerns as a scientist. So, before youaccept a committee assignment, ask for a detaileddescription of what will be expected of you interms of time commitment and the nature of thedecisions to be made. It may help to talk withyour colleagues about which committees areimportant to your success and which are potentialtime-wasters.Your university may have a number of committeesthat take care of issues such as promotion offaculty, hiring new faculty, ethics, human subjectsresearch, laboratory safety, teaching, awards, andlong-term planning for the university. If you areasked to serve, try to find out about the meetingschedules and workloads of these committees.Generally, committees that are responsible forcase-by-case review of individual applications orprojects are the most labor-intensive. However,the workload of a policy committee that initiallysounded light may suddenly expand when it findsitself dealing with a “hot” issue.Many committees, however, do give you a goodreturn on your time investment. Serving on asearch committee for hiring new staff may giveyou a voice in deciding who a new colleague willbe. You might also want to be on a committeethat puts together a seminar program or scientificmeeting. This will give you a chance to inviteleaders in your field to visit your institution, aswell as being a good way to bring in scientistswith whom you may want to collaborate. Work onan admissions committee for graduate studentsmight be worthwhile because it will introduce youto students who could work in your lab. A goodstrategy is to try to get on a committee whereyour expertise will be useful but you will not beoverburdened. Ask the head of your departmentand senior faculty for advice on balancing committeework with your other obligations in the earlyyears of your career.26 excellence everywhere